The Changing Context of Further and Higher Education and Youth Employment (original) (raw)

2017, Youth Identities, Education and Employment

This chapter begins with a discussion of neoliberalism to highlight how this concept has increasingly underpinned and influenced the social context throughout the United Kingdom and globally since the end of World War II (Jones 2015). I then discuss two key policy changes, arising, in part, from neoliberal discourses and ideology: first, the impact of cuts to the EMA; second, the impact of the increase in university top-up fees for tuition. I will be comparing the university fees top-up policy in England to the higher education fee situation in Greece and Spain to explore the parallels of these countries with the English context. Then finally, the chapter considers the current youth un/employment context facing young people in England and compares and contrasts this with youth un/employment in Greece and Spain (Nölke 2016; McCann 2010). Throughout this chapter I argue that changes to further and higher education policy have increased the socioeconomic gap between advantaged and disadvantaged young people. I contend that the influence of neoliberalism has been central to the restructuring within education and the economy and that certain social identities are better placed than others to manage these changes whilst maintaining an advantaged position. England, like many countries within the global north, has used the financial crisis in 2007 as a mandate to enact sweeping welfare and educational reforms, and this has reshaped the landscape facing young people as they

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